AN. So this is the last part of chapter one YAY. We have started chapter 2 on the site and I will start posting in here in a few day's.
Clarissa Smith
Date: March 05
Time: 1207
Place: Earth
Author: PaperbagPrincess
Calrissa sat cross legged on the floor assembling the pieces of electronics she had ordered for Mr.Carvine. More then a little nervous because of the tall intimidating man who had become her constant shadow the past few days, her hand trebled causing her to slide the piece in to place incorrectly and damage it. Jumping up in flustration Clarissa threw the now useless piece of expensive equipment to the floor and started to stomp on it not caring at that moment who her audience was "God's Damn stupid piece of junk" she told off the piece of electronics.
After a few minutes as she started to calm down and come to her senses she could feel Mr.Stilliss's disapproving gaze on her making her feel even smaller then she was which was no mean feet and something this Mr.Stillis seemed to excel at. Taking a deep breath and trying to appear more dignified then she really was she turned her gaze to the man with the intent of giving him a butter would not melt in her mouth look. In her eagerness she spun a little to fast though and with the shattered pieces of the hard drive laying about she quickly found herself slipping and falling on her ass as a pain wrenched in her ankle. Tears flooded her eye's "Idiot idiot ...how could I be so stupid" she not so quietly chastised herself.
"A very good question" she heard Stillis's voice from just above her and looking up she saw he had crossed the distance between them silently and was now standing in front of her. Feeling like she was going to swallow her tongue she found she was unable to reply with any decent comeback and nearly jumped up to run away as he crouched down beside her. Giving her a quick once over "are you hurting any where?" he asked her to which Clarissa nodded her head. Stillis looked at her waiting for her to expand on the head movement, but the meaning behind his look was completely lost on Clarissa all she saw were a pare of gold eye boring into hers and she once again wanted to jump up and run like hell. Instead she blurted out "Back the fuck off" which elicited all of an raised eyebrow movement from him increasing his look of fierce disapproval.
Ignoring what she had just "Where are you hurt?" he demanded she tell him. Battling down the urge to hyperventilate and dropping her eye's "Left ankle" she answered feeling her skin turn red in embarrassment at her actions which only got worse as she felt his hands push her pant leg up and inspect her ankle.
Efficiently Stilliss checked over her ankle and with out taking his eye's off of what he was doing "Do have any impulse control at all?" he asked a hint of disgusted in his voice apparent and the first sign of any real emotion othe then disaproval from him she had scene. Looking at the top of his head trying to ignore the pain in her ankle "You don't like me very much do you." she stated. Waiting till he finished his inspection the room fell into silence for a few minutes before he lifted his head to look her in the eye's "No not much" he finely answered her as he scooped her up in his arms and started to carry her up to Laylind's office. "It appears you have a minor sprain Laylind has some ice in his office and a supply of tenser bandages so you wont have to go to the hospital if you don't want to. Nodding her head Calrissa could not help but notice this was the most he had said to her in the last few day's put together.
Clarissa and Laylind
Date: March 05
Time: 1247
Place: Earth
Author: PaperbagPrincess
Clarissa sat on the couch in Laylind's office with her leg up and some ice resting on it feeling like a complete idiot. Mr.Carvine was at his desk and Mr.Stilliss stood next to it both men were engaged in a heated discussion but were talking in a language she could not understand. Not that she needed to as it was obvious she was the topic. Of course this only made her want to know what they were saying even more, so when all of a second latter she was able to understand them without them changing language she just assumed they had. Looking over at them she could see Laylind looking right at her with a raised eyebrow which confused her a bit but she was more then happy that now she could understand what they were saying she did not give it to much consideration.
Laylind felt his skin tingle a sign someone had just preformed some kind of magic not a big spell but enough of one that he noticed it. Stilliss with the exception of a few particular abilities he was born with was un magical so that left the young girl sitting on his couch. He wondered if she even realized she had just done something magical but doubted she did he also was more then a little curious what it was she had done as nothing was physically apparent. He had a hunch though and decided to test it.
"Stilliss take the girl out back and shoot her" he said coldly and watched with great amusement as Stilliss seemed to freeze up in shock and as Clarissa fell off the couch with a squeak. Turning his attention to Stilliss "and that is why I hired her." he told him watching as Stilliss caught on t what had just happened quickly and giving him a dirty look. "Not that I think you really care Stilliss at a guess your just ticked I assigned you to babysit her." Laylind continued on ignoring the terrified girl on the floor who was trying to drag herself to the door. "And I know why you did Carvine im not stupid, you think I called the cop's and tipped them off" Stilliss responded to Laylind also ignoring Clarissa.
"Didn't you?" Laylind challenged him then turning his attention on Clarissa "My dear no one is going to shoot you I assure you but it was very rude of you to be eve's dropping on us like that" Clarissa's response was interrupted by Stilliss cold response to Laylinds accusation "NO" he said with enough force to turn the room cold. No one moved or spoke for a few minutes as they absorbed the impact of his denial.
"Fine you didn't" Laylind conceded to the younger man "but can you blame be considering you hatred of the Blood and your less then stellar reputation with loyalty?" he seemed to plead with Stilliss. Stillis on the other hand looked like he was about to hit Laylind.
More then a little fascinated by the exchange Clarissa blurted out "Wow you sure pissed him off I did not even think he had it in him nice to know he's not a living embedment of a statue after all" The brought the focus of the two men back on her again making her gulp and wish she had just kept her mouth shut.
"Ahh yes our little eves dropper" Laylind mused
"I am not an eves dropper it's just kind of hard to miss what your saying when im all of a few feet away and neither of you is exactly whispering" Clarissa denied passionately watching as a grin spread across Mr.Carvins face confusing her to no end.
"It's eves dropping my dear when you just used magic to listen into a conversation that is taking place in a language you have no way of knowing." He told her with relish and watched as her eye's grew to the size of golf balls.
Nathen White
Date: March 05
Time: 0200
Place: Earth
Author: Caravaggio
Nathan heard pounding in the room next door, well, pounding and crazed screaming. That was Duck, fucking some whore who was probably just as crazy as he was. He bunched the pillows around his head to try to muffle the sounds out. As tight as security had become after the delivery girl had made her way into the complex, they were still letting them have visits by local prostitutes. This part of the complex, the living quarters, didn't hold anything of importance anyway. Well, anything except the people who worked here. They had started letting them in after the incident with Duck and the break room. Apparently, they thought Duck needed a way to let off some of his "tensions." Nate couldn't disagree. Hearing him go at it now, he had to wonder how he had that much energy, he had been going on for more than an hour now nonstop. Nate was pretty sure he heard two women in there too.. figures. Nate pulled the pillow a little closer around his ears. Nathan wasn't really much for prostitutes. He liked woman, that was for sure, and he had a few come here now and then when he really needed it. It just never seemed to fit right with his personal value system; paying for sex. He thought about the girl who had died just a few days ago. He couldn't get her out of his mind. The man Duck called Mr. Spock had just cut her in two, without a thought. Nathan knew that his employers were shady, but this was a bit too much. Still… he really didn't have a way to get out of here and he certainly didn't want to go back to where he came from. The moaning next door was just getting louder. He tried once more to pull the pillow tight enough over his ears to nullify it, but then all he thought of were the dead girl's eyes. He'd had enough. He obviously wasn't getting any sleep tonight.
He walked over to his work station with his coffee. Nathan hated coffee, but he decided to give it another try tonight. He was getting older and felt that maybe now was the time to make the switch from drinking soda to keep awake to the more preferred coffee. Besides, it was a bit chilly in the room right now, not to mention dark. It was the middle of the night, so the normal working lights were off and all the other work stations were empty. The only sound was the hum from the massive computer hanging in front of him like a building. Nathan looked over the area of it he could see again before sitting down. Truly, if it was a building or some kind of ship it could hold a lot of people in it comfortably. He tried to work out the numbers in his head…. Somewhere in the tens of thousands he guessed. He heard some of the large cooling fans click on many stories above.
A few days ago, right after the incident with the girl actually, there had been a spike in the amount of power "The Machine" was sucking into it. It was considered to be well above the redline they had set for it for the time. They were afraid that there might be a system meltdown. But, the cooling systems had held out and everything returned to normal after a few minutes. Still, they had been at a loss as to why the computer had started sucking up so much power to begin with and then why it had stopped. Really, they had no idea of what this system was capable of… nothing like it had ever been built.
He flipped his screen on and sat down in front of his keyboard. He had been working with Duck on getting the verbal interaction systems up and online the last few days. He executed a few commands into his keyboard.
"Hello Nathan." Came a female voice. It scared the shit out of him at first. He had been used to hearing the slightly electronic and nongender computer voice. Apparently, Duck had been fiddling and tweaking things when Nathan hadn't been looking.
"Hello Machine. Are you registering my voice?"
"Of course Nathan." It shot back. It was actually quite amazing how much more human just changing the voice had made the whole thing seem.
"Please run a level four diagnostic Machine." Nathan flipped through a few pages of a manual trying to find what the baselines were supposed to be.
"You're in luck Nathan. I just finished a level three diagnostic before you sat down."
A level three had everything the level four did but it was a bit more complete. Where had it learned phrases like, 'You're in luck." Though. Nathan scratched his chin, he needed to shave, but then again it was the middle of the night.
"Please display the results on screen for me." He asked. His monitor scrolled with information and readouts on system performance.
"There is a problem with PLEX circuit RS-99-74A. It appears to be non-operational. All other systems are running at peak efficiency. "
Nathan checked the information on his screen against the hard copy of what things should look like in his hand. Everything appeared to be in good working order, accept for the aforementioned circuit. It wasn't an important system by any means, still, it needed to be fixed and analyzed for why it had ceased to function in the first place. It was probably just defective. With millions of similar circuits running through the Machine, it was just statistics that a few would have inherent flaws. He could wait until the techs woke up in the morning and put in a work request to have it replaced…. Or he could do it himself. He opted for the second, he hadn't actually climbed inside the guts of this computer for sometime and he was bored.
Nathan put a ear piece in so he could continue to converse with the Machine while he was working. Walking over to an adjacent storage area to find a replacement circuit he tested the mic and ear piece to make sure they were working again.
"Can you still register my voice Machine?"
"Of course Nathan."
He found the proper circuit. It looked remarkably like it contained little viles of blue water or oil. It could almost be a small work of art, though it wouldn't need to wait centuries after it's creators death to become valuable. When Nathan left here, he was going to have to try and see if he could get out with a few small pieces like this. They must be worth a fortune. He walked over onto the gangway that would allow him access to the Machine, the computer itself. He could feel the slight vibration of it in the flooring and the heat of it as he got closer. It really was amazing how big this thing was. He heard more cooling fans click on far above him.
"Machine, is this the correct access panel?" Nathan ran his hands along a plate on the computers exterior.
"Yes Nathan, you are at access panel RS-99."
He clicked over the access lock, removing the panel and placing it aside on the floor. Lights flickered on inside. This was the part he hated. He had to crawl up inside of the computer itself. It was a long tube of sorts. Nathan remember the first time he had crawled inside, before the voice interaction with the computer had been put in place. He had gotten lost inside. It was a maze of these tunnels. At the time he had only Duck screaming at him from somewhere to guide him, and THAT was little to no help. He crawled inside and began making his way into the depths of the computer.
"Nathan, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course Machine, what is it?" Questions now? He didn't remember that before, maybe it was just the female voice that was throwing him off. His knees already hurt from crawling this way. Why did they have to make it so fucking awkward?
"Will you give me a name?"
Nathan paused in his crawling and looked upward as if that was where the female voice was coming from, "You already have a name, you're the Machine."
"I think I would like another. Will you give me another name Nathan?"
He started crawling again, with a bit of a smirk now, it had a point, "The Machine" was a lousy name, she…. IT could thank Duck for that, "Maybe you should come up with your own name. That way it will suit you."
"That is a good idea Nathan. Thank you."
Nathan heard a throbbing hum from somewhere deep. It was hard to tell if it was a normal sound or not, everything sounded differently inside of hear and things tended to get amplified in strange ways, "So, what have you decided upon? What shall I call you?"
"I am going to take some time to think about it if that is okay."
Nathan wondered what it could possibly have to take time for. It had probably already gone over a list of every name in existence… probably in the amount of time it took Nathan to just think the word "name." Still, if it wanted to take it's time it could he supposed. After a few twists and turns down different access tubes he found the panel that had the bad circuit behind it. A few clicks and he removed it. He looked over the bad circuit behind. It had popped a few of the blue vile like things. Nathan flipped a few breakers on either side of the panel so that he wouldn't be completing any circuits of his own while he worked on removing the piece. He opened his toolbox to get out the most important tool, the screwdriver. All this technology and it was still put together with screws. He popped the bad PLEX circuit out and looked over it again, getting a little of the blue goop on his hands. He wiped it off on his pants with a slight groan.
"Nathan can I ask you another question?"
Sigh. Now it was becoming like a child. He heard the hum from before getting a bit louder.
"Of course, what is it?"
"Do you dream?"
Whoa. Fucking Duck. He was putting shit into the Machines head..err… memory, to screw with him. This was starting to sound like a sci fi movie he had seen. Definitely Duck.
"Of course I dream." Where did he put that screw driver? It had disappeared somewhere… typical.
"What do you dream of Nathan?"
He paused to think about it. He saw the eyes of the girl that had died. He tried to push it out and remember a more pleasant dream from his past. The hum became a mechanical scream deep somewhere. Nathan's heart began to jump in his chest. The floor was vibrating like crazy, his tool box dancing across it.
"Nathan.." it wasn't from the ear piece. A hand grabbed his shoulder lightly. He let out a yelp and turned his head. The girl who had delivered the pizza days before, the dead girl, Katherine was sitting in front of him trying to hand him his screw driver.